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Saturday, 25 April 2020

Mad Rush For Sites Where Lagos Clients Order For Ladies

Prostitution is illegal all over Nigeria. But it has forever been a free trade zone. However, the social stigma that comes with patronage is getting Lagos men to be ingenious. This report found out how they now do it, without leaving traces.

Seyi (surname withheld as agreed) works on Lagos Island. He isn’t yet in the class of the so-called Island Big Boys, but he is holding his own. You will expect a bevvy of ladies at his beck and call, but he is catching his fun elsewhere, with little or no stress, as long as there is cash to pay for “his” goods from his favourite online prostitution platform.

“For me, In message (an app) is the most favourite of all. I have met countless girls there and had sex with them all. All I do is to visit the app and see if there’s any new shawties (a general codename for girls on the platform), especially the ones looking for hook-ups. If there is any, I would invite her to my house and pay 20k after I must have had sexual intercourse with her.

“Most of them are deceptive in terms of pictures. It is when you see them that you know they are not real in the sense that they aren’t the actual persons on their display pictures. However, I have met girls that are real there,” Seyi said.

Tunde, another up-and-coming fellow, isn’t as daring as Seyi. He was just fishing in the social media for fun, but his hook caught a whale. He bolted.

“I met Adeola on Facebook and we discussed at length. Surprisingly, later in the evening, around 10.00 p.m., she just called, informing me that she would like me to help her with N30,000; that she wanted to use it to offset her school fees. I promised to send her the money but I blocked her immediately and we haven’t talked ever since that time.”

Oldest trade on new media

Instead of standing by the roadside with the attendant social stigma and the risk of constant police raid, sex hawkers in Lagos are seeking modern ways of staying in the trade, which is as old as humanity. Since all businesses are being encouraged to go digital, sites and apps are now springing up offering sex for sale and findings by Saturday Tribune showed that Lagos men are grabbing the opportunity like cake just out of oven.

At just a click, sexual activity in exchange for money is available to those making the choice without being exposed to the social stigma that comes with being clients of sex sellers.

200,000 downloads in 3 months

Known as the popular free dating App, specially designed for those looking for love, Inmessage is an online platform where sex workers advertise their products but it is subtle in the sense that not all the people who register on this platform outwardly belong to that category because some claim to be there to make new friends for leisure purpose.

In the last three months, the app has become one of the most downloaded by Nigerians with over 200,000 downloads.

Designed with the appellation: Chat, Meet and Date, Inmessage is outwardly defined by four main characteristics, namely, Explore, Online, Popular and Nearby. Explore allows users to see the pictures of different people from different locations they can chat with. Nearby displays the pictures of people that are closer to the user. Online shows the number of people that are presently online. Popular directs the user to the pictures and profile of those that are on his contact that are users of Inmessage.

A regular user of the application, Derinsola, while sharing his experience in Lagos, said feeling lonely, he decided to make use of the platform to discover that most of the girls on the platform were fake with pictures that are not theirs.

According to him, he met a girl for hook-up on Inmessage and asked her to send her pictures via Whatsapp but there was no relationship between the pictures she sent and the ones on her profile on the application.

“Well, because of my desperation for sex, I decided to see her regardless of the fact that the pictures were not hers, believing that she would at least be presentable. Unfortunately for me, she was far, far below expectation; there was nothing to write home about her as she was not presentable. She looked very masculine.”

Derin was of the opinion that most of the girls use beautiful pictures on their profiles so that they can easily attract customers and make them salivate sexually before seeing them.

Another frequent user of the application, Shola disagreed with Derin’s conclusion. He told Saturday Tribune that most of the

pictures on the platform are real, adding that he had been using the platform for a year and a half, and that the girls he had been meeting through the platform were the exact pictures on their profiles.

He disclosed further that he had gone to meet up with a girl he picked from the app at her residence and she had also visited his house.

Unlike the more popular Codedruns.com, Shola said that the cost of having an escort on Inmessage was relatively cheaper, adding that the last sex worker he had charged N2,000. He explained that by his experience, one pays lesser for an in-call (when you go to meet the lady at home), but pays higher for an out-call (when the sex worker comes to meet you at home) which, according to him, was nothing in comparison to other escort sites like Codedruns.com.

Nigeria’s largest online sex directory

Often regarded as Nigeria’s largest online escort directory where every escort is fully 100 per cent independent and pay is in local currency, Codedruns.com is a highly structured site with an administrator giving instructions on the site. One of such instructions is, “If you are struggling to complete registration on this site, contact the admin through a Whatsapp number (provided number restricted),” while sounding it clearly on the platform that clients are expected to provide transportation upfront, after confirming escorts with video calls and concluding with “please do not hesitate to report any fraudulent escort.”

With warning shot of “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” boldly inscribed as its watchword, Codedruns.com has blacklisted clients whom escorts would patronise at their own risk. The administrator also warned escorts of reported dangerous clients, which suggested that some of the sex hawkers on the platform had been in harm’s way sometime in the past. The operator was also magnanimous enough to warn prospective clients of fraudulent escorts, which also points to the fact that some of those engaged for “runs” had posed some danger to some past clients.

Raunchy profiles all over

The escorts, as the prostitutes are called on this site, have their full details on their respective profiles, which include registration date, last login date, profile view count, age, place and state of residence, with personal descriptions of themselves, the kind of services they render and the amount charged, depending on whether it is weekend, per night or an hour.

A sampler

For Favour, an escort, it is “Detailed registration date: July 16, 2018; Last login date: September 7, 2018; Profile view count: 4,335; 23 years old Female from Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria.” She says she’s cool, calm, fun to be with and naughty, warning visitors to the site not to call or text her if they aren’t serious and should go through her profile very well before contacting her.

When Saturday Tribune contacted her through a Whatsapp conversation, it was, however, established that this sex worker was impersonating on the platform with someone else’s picture, showing all the person’s private parts publicly. The picture on her Whatsapp display did not, in any way, match with the raunchy ones displayed for her on the sex trade platform.

Another escort, Winnie, who says she is 5’7 in height and weighs 50kg, claims to be 20 years of age and registered on the platform on March 9, 2018 with the last login date being September 8, 2018.

The pictures on her profile showed complete nakedness of the person in them with further information on the platform saying she charges “In-call (N25,000) and Out-call (N30,000) for one hour, whereas she only does out-call (N50,000) for an overnight.”

When Saturday Tribune contacted her, she was asked whether she voluntarily asked the administrator of the platform to upload her supposed naked pictures, she interjected, saying “Why are you asking me this kind of question? Haven’t you seen through video call? I’m sorry it’s a personal question and I don’t want to discuss it.”

It was discovered that she did not in any way look like the pictures of the totally naked lady she put on her platform, which implies that she has been using another person’s pictures as hers without the consent of the actual person.

On this job, it appears impersonation means nothing

Hot Ice, the professional name she acquired, says she’s simple, understanding, hot and a good company but does not joke with her bills, adding that she graduated from Madonna University and bisexual in sexual orientation.

For her fees, she says “In-call (N20,000) and Out-call (N25,000) for an hour; overnight and weekend for N30,000 and N50,000 out-call only respectively.”

She confessed to Saturday Tribune that her name was Jennifer, but bears Hot Ice on the platform. She corroborated her details on the platform, agreeing that those charges are non-negotiable.

But one thing striking about her is that the raunchy pictures on her name on the platform were confirmed to be hers. During a video call with Saturday Tribune’s correspondent who called her attention to the finding, she enthused, “Oh! you like my clitoris? Thank you. The pictures are mine.”

Review comments by clients lend credibility to the sex workers on the platform, with some attesting to how appealing they were and their performances.